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Friday, September 4, 2015

The State of the Stockpile

Well I got the pantry cleaned/organized a couple of weeks back after College Boy went back to school.

The before shot.............

And the after shot.........

I got rid of the cardboard box and put all the small appliances from it into an extra Rubbermaid tub we had laying around. Multiple of the same items that were opened were combined, thus taking up less space. Item CB had brought in from the stockpile to use and then changed his mind and then shoved into the pantry were put back into the stockpile. Now the only items in the pantry are opened items being used and maybe if that open item is almost empty another of the same kind, ready to be pressed into service. Also in here are unopened items which will be used in the coming week's meal plan and/or items used often like a can of tomatoes, tomato paste, a box of pasta, a can of soup or beans, etc.
The large paper bag holds my onions and there is a bag of potatoes behind it.
The only exceptions are my dried beans and a bag of sugar which critters might get into if kept in the garage.

In conjunction with cleaning out and organizing the pantry I also thoroughly went through my stockpile of foodstuffs(you know, the shelf stable canned, boxed, bagged, bottled stuff)in the garage, cleaning and organizing that.

It took me 3 full days to get it all gone through and organized again.
Between me just throwing grocery store purchases happenstance on the shelves and College Boy taking items out then changing his mind about eating said items and shoving them into the pantry instead of back in the stockpile, both locations were an utter disaster!!

In progress after Day One of cleaning......items all over my antique sewing machine cabinet, some items still on the floor and only 2 shelves organized.

So I moved everything around and put it all back into some sort of order. Amazingly, I only had to throw out about 10 items that got pushed to the back and forgotten and not eaten before it was safe to do so.
Barbecue sauce from 2010 and a can of condensed sweetened milk from 2007? No thanks! lolz

As I reorganized I also made sure to rotate stock so that "first in" gets used first, going forward. 8-)

Everything can be seen now and is grouped and arranged by "last in, first out". Plus most items are off the floor too(except for those gallon jugs of tea and our "alcohol stockpile" which is a whole other story. lolz

Over the last 2 years we have actually reduced the amount of the stockpile. We have two industrial type metal shelving units(one is pictured above)with 5 shelves on each as well as 3 dinky metal shelving units w/5 shelves each, like they sell at Home Depot. Every single shelf was filled with food/paper/cleaning products!
Now we are down to using 8 of the 10 industrial shelves and 9 of the 15 dinky shelves.

So here is the state of the stockpile.

And these are the items I don't even need to THINK about buying again before 2016--

6 comments:

Since moving to the smaller house with much less storage, our stockpile has dwindled and we are buying needed for food on a weekly basis. For the personal goods, we still have a small stockpile. Christmas will be filled with shampoo, shaving cream and toothbrushes this year!

I used to stockpile more when we had room to do so (house twice as big with gigantic pantry) but now unless it is a really good freaking deal I usually make sure I have 3 or less. Things go on the grocery list (to look for deals, not to buy) when they go down to 2 or 1 left in the pantry. It works pretty well. I only just used the last plastic wrap from a deal from 5 years ago so it is worth stockpiling when things get so bloody low. Mostly I try and buy certain things in Bulk like rice to keep costs down. We did go back to Costco this year after not having a membership for 3 years, mostly to keep our over the counter meds costs down and that really seems to be helping.

A good friend of mine keeps 1 year of food in stockpile. I font gave the space for that. We probably have 3 months worth. Towards the end of that 3 months some meals would be mighty interesting thoughWe had those same shelves - if your hubby hasn't yet have him check the wood fir warping

I live with a chef so the café is ordered like a military installation. Apparently in our hone we have an obsession with tinned tomatoes and Coney Island Hot Dog Mustard. You've got me worried.Jean-Paulitsmyhusbandandme.wordpress.com

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Welcome to my blog! I'm just an older mom, simple gal living my life as best I can. I enjoy saving money, talking frugality, couponing, compacting, personal finance, genealogy, about the South, art, theater and sewing, interspersed with my humorous take on the world and my daily adventures.
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